Women. ISSUES. Starbucks.

Something interesting (and when I say interesting, I mean terrible) is happening in India at the moment. Now, I don’t follow cricket—on the contrary, I think it’s the single most boring sport on the planet, with the most hideous looking players to boot. Anyway, what seems to have happened is that a trashy douche bag from Australia, who’s had several run-ins with the law in Australia including assaulting a police officer, which is a pretty serious crime, has sexually assaulted a woman and beaten up her fiancé.

I didn't want to add pics related to the subject. Anyway, this is a Korean restaurant we went to in Gurgaon. I ate lots of raw stuff and got sick the next day. Really hope I don't have parasites in my brain.

So, is the trashy dude being deported back to his country where he’d surely have gotten his ass sued to kingdom come had he tried the same antics there? Nope. In fact, India  his team seems to be coming to his defence by trashing the woman. What was an ‘engaged’ woman doing drinking and talking to men anyway? Oh.My.Effing.Gawd—she is so not behaving like a future wife. Never mind that the police had a WARRANT that called for Richard Gere’s ARREST after he kissed some actress chick on the cheeks. This woman, who traded her bbm pin, and went to her room was FREAKING ASKING TO BE ASSAULTED by someone who would probably have been robbing gas stations had it not been for cricket.

The assailant must be ecstatic! Not only has he discovered a country where he can sexually assault as many women as he likes without facing the consequences (unless the women in question happen to be ‘more important’ than his Indian benefactor)—he can also drink and drive, and not have to ‘fight’ with the police when they try to arrest him. All he has to do is slip the guy a few thousand rupees (would be a few hundred if he was South Asian, but they’ll try to milk him for more because he isn’t). [NOTE: you can read more about people getting away with criminal behavior including sexual assault, rape and subsequent murder, and driving under the influence of alcohol here, here, and here].

*EDIT: there doesn't seem to be as much 'victim blaming' in this case as there usually is. That's good news indeed!

One of our wedding presents! I love it so much! 

 But do you know what really gets on my nerves?

When people assume that the Western world is free of this double standard bullshit. Oh, it isn’t. [Okay, maybe the double standard isn't AS BIG as it is in India, but it's still there].

Let me give you some examples—Amy Winehouse versus Charlie Sheen. Winehouse was ridiculed by the press for a long, long time like one big joke. Any article based on Winehouse (before her death) would have one or two lines, decidedly towards the end, that had this melodramatically pitiful tone: ‘oh she’s so talented. What a shame.’ Kinda like they were one of those teachers who say ‘oh your kid has so much potential, but just doesn’t put in the effort’ to parents in the PTA. Newsflash: that’s just some half-assed crap teachers say to ALL mommies and daddies to keep the PTA meeting short. And avoid all responsibility of actually, you know, teaching.

Sheen, on the other hand, gets treated like a legend. Charlie Sheen beat his wife…HAHAHA. Charlie Sheen passed out in public…HAHAHA. Etc. Etc. And so on. There are no expectations put on Sheen, like there were on Winehouse….or Houston…or Lohan. No one expects Keith Richards to clean up his act either, and he REALLY should—the man looks like a walking zombie.

Women are just not expected to fuck up. And if they do, they’re expected to clean up their act and come out looking pristine, with every hair in place. Think Brittany Spears.

Speaking of women who are train wrecks

I just discovered Cat Marnell from xojane online magazine, and boy is she a train wreck. The girl’s a beauty editor who talks about her drug addictions, drinking an entire bottle of rubbing alcohol, taking Plan B three times in a month while practising unsafe sex, and so much more. She’s fragile, damaged, and very vocal about her issues. And the internet is very, very pissed off. (And I really don’t think people should be). The girl’s not pretending to be anyone’s role model. Also, who better to take beauty advice from than someone who has put her skin and hair through hell and back?

I think she is a prime example of ‘why you shouldn’t put your kids on mild altering amphetamines for ADHD.’ Hell, I was prescribed Dexedrine in 2005, went off it in early 2009. Three years down the line, there are days where I still feel that life would be so much easier if I just had the magic pill—one that makes me awake, alert, full all the time, and gives me the ability to sit and do mind numbingly boring tasks for hours on ends. In hindsight, what I should have done is—a) changed my major into something I was interested in b) not studied for the MCAT c) learned some life skills like cooking. Basically, the lesson I learned was—taking a prescription so you can focus on something you hate isn’t the way to go about living your life.

Fortunately enough, I didn’t end up a train wreck a la Marnell. But I sure as hell do not have the survival skill, coping mechanism, or just plain intelligence I guess, to sit and do something in which I have zero interest (let’s call the task ‘Y’). So every time I sit down to do Y, I can’t focus, I distract myself, and I forget about Y. I just can’t do it. Now maybe if someone had a gun pointed at my head, I might sort of be able to do some of it—but man, I just cannot sit still.

I should write an ode to Starbucks and how much I miss their overpriced drinks in the form of a Shakespearean Sonnet . We found these bottles at Le Marche for Rs.250/bottle. Ended up buying a whole crate.

End note: I still haven’t answered the comments yet :( because I’m actually trying to do Y when I’m supposed to be doing Y—gah…it’s a mess. And then I have to take it home--which results in me drinking 6 cups of coffee and running around my apartment, failing miserably at concentrating. I hope things sort themselves out soon. In the meantime, I HAVE STARBUCKS! ...or some form of Starbucks at least. That does make things a bit better.

Updates: Vitamin D, Dangerous Flights, and Chubby Cats

Hello readers! 

I stopped blogging for a bit because…well…I had a ton of energy to do other things, like play badminton, watch movies, read books, watch some television (did you know that you can watch the Kardashian reality show in India? Guess how many IQ points I've lost so far), shop, try out more restaurants, etc, etc, and so on. Thank you guys for leaving comments even though the blog wasn’t being updated regularly! Will definitely answer them soon :)

See, it turned out that I had a very, very bad vitamin D deficiency. Like dismally bad. I failed my vitamin D test with miserable colors. In fact, my levels were LESS than half of the minimum level required. I have no idea how it got so bad, I mean, apart from living in the frozen tundra with 6 months of winter for some seven years.

Anyway, a month and a half of taking highly concentrated vitamin D supplements later, I feel like an old person who’s become young again. My hair’s stopped falling in chunks, my skin isn’t grey anymore, and I can play badminton for 30 minutes without feeling like I’m going to pass out. I would definitely recommend that you get your vitamin D levels checked if you don’t get enough direct sunlight. And apparently, spending a month on the beach doesn’t count—it takes years to build up.

Some [opinionated] updates I’d like to share

1.       Do not fly domestic in Nepal. If you want to live, that is. There was another crash yesterday in which some 15 people were killed. The planes are ancient, pilots are interchangeable (with the more experienced pilots opting to head out of the country for better pay), and the airports are ill-equipped. Worse yet: there is absolutely no accountability. Imagine flying with all these variables, in a treacherous mountainous terrain, that’s possibly one of the most difficult terrains to navigate in the world! “On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero” (Tyler Durden). Make that ‘short enough’ in this case. Seriously--I'd recommend travelling domestically on a donkey rather than taking one of those flights.

2.       Cat on a diet = cranky cat. My cat’s been kinda chubby lately so I put her on a ‘timed eating schedule’ to make sure she’s not overeating. She bit me and tried dragging me to her food bowl! She also tries blackmailing the maid by stalking her in the kitchen and pleading at her with ‘big eyes.’

Chubby Cat!

3.       DON’T EAT SALAD IN DELHI, EVER! Or you’ll end up with a weird parasite in your brain or chest muscle, which is damn near impossible to kill even with years of medication. Seriously, salads aren’t worth it. Chocolate fondant on the other hand…

4.       I found Dark Shadows hilarious in spite of the negative reviews. It’s like people expected Burton to be a kind of Tolstoy figure and deliver some deep and meaningful philosophical message in his movie…and they’re disappointed when that didn’t happen. Um, newsflash: Burton was never deep, meaningful, and philosophical. I really like his movies for the storyline, art direction, and music (<3 Danny Elfman)—but his movies are not supposed to induce a spiritual and philosophical epiphany in any way.

5.       There’s a new ‘Nepali’ themed restaurant that’s opened up next to Striker—but they serve Punjabi food. We had a WTF moment when we went there as the waiters were dressed in Nepali attire with Nepali hats on and everything. Why would you have a Nepali themed restaurant called Namche Bazar (complete with wooden interiors and waiters in Nepali hats) in Gurgaon that serves PUNJABI food? You’d think they’d at least add momos and chilli fries to the menu right?

6.       Odomoss is my new best friend. After getting 23 mosquito bites and subsequently freaking out about Dengue, Malaria, Elephantiasis, etc, I learned my lesson and started drenching myself in Odomoss every day. Best decision ever. I might get some kind of chemical poisoning in the long run, but hey, at least it keeps the mosquitoes at bay.

7.        I have a ton of people on Facebook with whom I don’t recall having a single conversation. Some, I don’t know, or seem to have forgotten, entirely. It’s like having a moment when someone’s conversing with you, and you’re all like ‘WHO THE EFF IS THAT GUY?’

8.       I wore a Sari and wasn’t terrible at keeping it up! Granted it was pinned. And I had help from four different people who tied it three times before I could walk in it. But anyway, on the bright side of things, I didn’t look completely mentally challenged in it. Hooray!

That's her 'big eyes' face

My Weekend in Rajasthan!

I had a pretty amazing weekend at the Samode Palace near Jaipur. A friend gave us this mini-holiday as our wedding present! Yay! We drove there from Gurgaon and it took us about 6 hours to get there, twice as much time as googlemaps said it would take. Fortunately, it took us 4 hours to get back, which wasn't too bad.

The highway to Jaipur was a lot better than what I had expected--initially, I was a bit afraid as we were stuck in a traffic jam full of trucks that looked like they would fall apart any second, but as the traffic eased, I was less afraid. Don't get me wrong, you still see people driving on the opposite side of the roads, motor-cycles (actually dirt bike equivalents) with entire families without helmets on, over-stocked trucks that tilt sideways as they speed ahead, and a hell of a lot of other scary things, but it's still doable. We actually saw 12 people, they looked like an entire extended family, cramped into one tiny little car. 

The Palace was really beautiful and the service was excellent! All-in-all, really nice wedding present to get :)

Camels are cute!

On my way to breakfast

Wake up in the morning and have champagne with breakfast! 

These puppets are kinda scary.

Makes you feel like a princess.

They keep the water here ice cold.

Not for epilepsy patients!

Lovely view!

Again, not for epilepsy patients!

Really pretty window.

Hospitals, Idlis and the Scorching Heat

I had four vials of my blood taken out today—just a regular check up for vitamin deficiencies.

My diet has generally very bad for the last decade or so, but I thought I had gotten better after moving to India. My maid blends fruits for me every day so I can get my daily fruit uptake by drinking juice instead of eating them (hate fruits). My vegetable intake isn’t so great though (hate veggies). So my diet usually consists of chicken or fish or mutton and rice or roti. I also eat tomato chutney so maybe that can count as a vegetable, though technically, I think tomato is a fruit. While this diet may not seem to healthy to you, it’s way healthier than what I used to eat in Canada…which I can’t pin point or remember. What I do remember is that I was 10 to 15lbs lighter.

So anyway, I had to get a blood test done so I dragged Kartik to the hospital with me. He’s not a big fan of hospitals either and tries to avoid them when possible. I convinced him to come with me for ‘moral support’ as I always get freaked out by needles—in the sense that I’m not scared of them, just scared of the needle won’t be fresh. I realize that these are world class hospitals that are affiliated with many hospitals abroad, but, as they say, this is India. You can never be too sure of these things as human error runs high.

The minute we got into the hospital, Kartik’s eyes became really big. This is the conversation that ensued:

Kartik: IDLIS! I smell IDLIS!

Me: how can you tell?

Kartik: never doubt my idli detecting skills!

Me: are you serious?

Kartik: you go get your blood test done, I’m going to go find the IDLIS!

Me: (;___;) but I need you to check whether they open a fresh needle or I’ll be freaked out for months that they used a dirty needle.

Kartik: *sigh* alright.

Kartik did eventually get to eat his idlis at the hospital cafeteria. I didn’t join him as I was too freaked out by the germs floating around the place. Also, the concept of covering your face while coughing to prevent the spread of germs doesn’t seem to be given too much thought around these parts. And anyway, I don’t get the big deal behind idlis—they’re just rice balls.

Seriously. They're just rice balls.

I have to head back to the hospital tomorrow and get an ECG done; though this time I won’t be dragging Kartik along. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he volunteered to come just to eat the idlis at the cafeteria!

If Hell Had a Geographical Location

…then Delhi/NCR would be it. Actually, Haryana would be it, but that’s for different reasons.

It’s that time of the year again when the weather gets unbearably hot. Today’s highs are 35C (95F). Two weeks from now the weather is going to be well over 40C (100F). WITHOUT CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING AND TEMPERATURE CONTROL.

Well, apparently, for some people 35C (of dry heat) means that it’s still too ‘cold’ to turn on the AC. Apparently, if you turn on the AC at 35C, you’ll die of pneumonia caused by exposure to the winters of Winnipeg. Never mind that you can always put on something if you’re cold while the person feeling unbearably hot can only take off so much. Kartik would have gone nuts in this situation as he needs the AC on at 18C in addition to the ceiling fan. 

[Note: I lived in Winnipeg for two and a half years. We had a good few months of -30C weather and a good few weeks of -50C weather, during which we stayed in heated residences and didn’t burst into flames].

*Add some voodoo / bullshit scientific beliefs here*

Apparently you have to turn off the AC, sit in the room as the temperature slowly goes up to match the outside environment before you head outside. Because if you don’t, then your body’s internal temperature control mechanism goes haywire…and you die. There’s no point in saying ‘hey, that’s not exactly how the hypothalamus functions’ because these people will have no idea what a hypothalamus is, let alone understand how it functions. At times like these, I wish I could call up the ‘Intelligent Design’ people in the US and make some introductions. 

Hilarious!

How India will Attain World Domination…

…by letting the progeny of their upper middle class [from Delhi/ NCR] loose onto the rest of the world. By progeny, I mean the annoying, screaming, shouting, ill mannered, little children who live in my building.

I’ve already written about the screaming kids I’ve encountered in champagne brunches. They’re generally running, speaking on the top of their lungs, playing games in a restaurant instead of outside…all the while their parents are getting hammered and not the least bit concerned that their little angels are annoying the hell out of other customers. I can understand them wanting to be hammered—hell, I’d want to be hammered every day if I had their insufferable children. It’s just that, I’m really surprised they just don’t leave their kids at home. Why bring them to a champagne brunch? To be fair, these parents have done their share of hard parenting by delegating the task of looking after their children to a maid, who’s probably under age, and is very aware that she is ‘lucky’ to be taken to a restaurant in the first place. Not like the other maids who’re not ‘good enough’ to be taken to such outings.

Well, the kids in my building make the champagne brunch brats look like the Von Trapp kids (after they become nice). Case in point, I’ve been advised to exercise for stress relief—not just exercise like going to the gym, but exercise in terms of taking on a sport. Apparently, it’s a good outlet for my aggression which has accumulated and then compounded by prolonged exposure to bad drivers, bad roads, pollution, traffic jams that last for hours, annoying old ladies, general chaos and lack of order in life etc, etc, you get the idea.  Since I am generally weak and have terrible hand-eye coordination for any kind of sport, I’ve taken up badminton. You don’t really need a lot of strength to play it and my building has an indoor air-conditioned court so it’s easily accessible. So basically, the story of my life at this particular moment is: I’m playing badminton to avoid a large scale nervous breakdown.

The rules in my building are quite clear: children under the age of 12 should have parental supervision when using the gym or other fitness facilities. This means jack shit to the people in my building. In the evenings, parents tend to lounge around the ‘media room’ or ‘park’ while their kids run amok.

Seriously, until the last few days of my life, I had no idea that human children, let alone adults, were capable of having vocal cords to sustain such loud screaming. Though I suppose it’s good practice for when then become adults and will need to do a lot of shouting at bad drivers, incompetent Vodafone employees, and co-workers who are ‘beneath’ them in the office hierarchy.

Back to the story—so when I’m playing badminton with Kartik and taking out my aggression on the feathery cork, there’ll be kids running in and out of the indoor court, screaming on the top of their lungs. Last Thursday night, I actually herded a few of them out saying that the courts are for adults to play badminton and not for kids. There were these two little girls trying to play badminton (no parent in sight even though the rules clearly state that children under 12 need parental supervision), so we let them take up half the court. Apparently, they were ‘fighting’ with another little girl in the building who sent her ‘henchmen’ (two other little girls) to call a truce. What ensued was a long and extremely loud conversation of what they were fighting about and other internal politics of the playground. Until I shooed them out that is.

Kartik called me the badminton bully but meh, I don’t care. It’s freaking 8 at night. Kids under 10 should be in bed or at least eating dinner. Not annoying adults who’re trying to play badminton to avoid a nervous breakdown dammit.

So anyway, I’ve a few options on how to deal with the situation. Kartik says that talking to the parents won’t help. If we alert them that the rules say parental supervision is required for kids under 12, they’ll simply take down the rules. You know the expression “rules are meant to be broken?” Delhi/ NCR defines it. Kartik says the best way to deal is to keep playing, and if you hit a kid with your racket because the kid is running around the court, then the kid will learn his/her lesson and won’t come near you again.

I’ve come up with my own plan—I’m going to talk to the parents and hope they’ll keep their angels supervised. If that doesn’t work—I’m going to be in the badminton court talking about tequila, vodka, drugs, you name it. Pretty sure this will ensure that mommies and daddies will keep their bunties and bubloos (and whatever nicknames they’ve given their kids) away from the lady in the badminton court.

Note: Kartik says this sort of behavior is most exemplified by kids in Delhi and that he doesn't remember so many bratty kids in Hyderabad. I must say that I concur with him, though I haven't really encountered too many children in Hyderabad.